“I think so. I’ve always thought so. That’s why I went back to him when Lester threw me out. He was the first man I ever let touch me.”
“It wasn’t Al Sweetner? Or Fritz Snow?”
She shook her head rather fiercely. “I was already pregnant when I went to L.A. with them. That was why I went.”
“And you let them take the rap.”
“Leo had a lot to lose. What did they have to lose?”
“Their whole lives.”
She lifted her hands as though to examine them for dirt or scars. A darkness and sadness had risen in her eyes. She ducked her head and hid her face in her hands.
Susan stepped out of her niche as if a spell had broken, and came toward us. Her face was unnaturally bright, like a radiant substance with a short half-life.
“You’re making my mother cry.”
“It won’t do her any harm. She’s human like the rest of us.”
The girl looked at the woman in faint surprise.
chapter 30
I left them together and went out into the hallway. The little boy was lolling on Willie’s knee, stunned by fatigue.
“He’s just about out for the count,” Willie said. “And I’ve got a new bride waiting for me eagerly in San Francisco.”
“Give me a few more minutes. Where’s Miss Storm?”
“In there with her son.” He pointed his thumb at the closed door of the small room under the stairs. “He’s a hardhead, which is why I’m sitting here.”
“What did he do?”
“Tried to fight Harold one-handed. Harold used to play football for the Forty-Niners.”
“Where’s Harold now?”
“Outside watching the house, in case anybody else shows up.” He made a dour face, and gave the boy a gentle poke in the ribs. “Perish the thought, eh, sleepyhead?”
I knocked on the door of the small room. Ellen told me to come in.
She was in the swivel chair. Her son was sitting on the floor beside the safe as if it was a stove that gave no heat. His face was so pale and wretched that it made his red hair and beard seem pasted on. His mouth had a nervous twitch, as if he was biting something, or being bitten.
“This is Mr. Archer,” Ellen said.
With some idea of showing friendly feeling, I asked him how his arm was. He spat on the floor in my direction.
“It’s broken,” Ellen said. “He got it set at a clinic in the Haight-Ashbury. They asked him to check back tomorrow–”
The boy cut off her sentence with a slashing movement of his good arm. “Don’t tell him anything. He was the one that made me lose Ariadne.”
“Sure I did. Also I broke your arm by hitting you on the gun-butt with my head.”
“I should have shot you.”
He was a hardhead, as Willie said. I couldn’t tell how much of the hardness was his own and how much was induced by physical and mental pain.
“He’s in trouble – I guess you know that,” I said to Ellen.
“Do you mean you have to arrest him?”
“That isn’t my job. And it isn’t my job to decide what to do with him. I’m not his father.”
“But you’re working for him, aren’t you?” Jerry said. “If you think you’re going to drag me back to Slobville–”
I turned on him: “Slobville can live without you. If you think the populace is waiting on the docks for your return, think again.”
That silenced him, but I felt a little cheap about talking him down, and a little dishonest. My mind threw up an image of Roger Armistead on the marina float, looking out to sea.
“He won’t go back to his father,” Ellen said. “I’ve been wondering if he couldn’t stay with me, at least for the present. I can arrange to get him the care he needs.”
“Do you think you can handle him?”
“I can give him shelter, anyway. I’ve given shelter to other troubled people.” Her face was open, willing without being eager.
“I don’t know what the law will have to say.”
“How does he stand with the law?”
“It depends on his record, if any.”
We both looked down at Jerry. He sat motionless, except for his twitch, like a sudden old man in the corner.
“Have you ever been arrested?” I said.
“No. I can hardly wait.”
“It isn’t funny. If the authorities wanted to throw the book at you, they could be rough. Taking the yacht could be grand larceny. Taking the boy could be child stealing or kidnaping or contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
Jerry looked up in dismay. “What do you think I did to him? I was trying to save his life.”
“You almost lost it for him.”
Jerry got his feet under him and rose awkwardly, grimacing with pain. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know I wrecked the yacht. But I didn’t steal her. Mr. Armistead left me in charge of her. Ask him.”
“You better talk to him yourself. But not tonight.” I said to his mother: “Why don’t you put him to bed?”
He didn’t argue. She walked him out with her arm around his shoulders. There was a look of acceptance on her face, almost as if she had lived too long without external trouble.
I knew it wasn’t a solution. Ellen was far gone in solitude, and he was too old to need a mother, really. He had to live out his time of trouble, as she had. And there was no assurance that he would. He belonged to a generation whose elders had been poisoned, like the pelicans, with a kind of moral DDT that damaged the lives of their young.
But I had no more time to worry about Jerry. I pulled the swivel chair around to face the phone and dialed Mrs. Broadhurst’s ranch in Santa Teresa. Jean answered immediately, in a voice that hung almost toneless between expectation and despair:
“This is the Broadhurst residence.”
“Archer speaking. I have your boy Ronny. He’s all right.”
She didn’t answer right away. Through the faint buzz and clamor on the line I could hear her breathing, as if she was the only life in an electronic universe.
“Where are you, Mr. Archer?”
“Sausalito. Ronny’s safe and in good condition.”
“Yes, I heard you.” Another silence. She said in a rather grudging tone: “What about the girl?”
“I have her safe. She isn’t in very good emotional shape.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“But she didn’t really intend to steal your son. She was running away from the man who killed your husband.”
“All the way to Sausalito?” she said incredulously.
“Yes.”
“Who was the man?”
“A bearded type with shoulder-length black hair, wearing dark wraparound glasses. Does that suggest anyone to you?”
“There are plenty of longhairs in Northridge. Here, too, for that matter. I haven’t had many contacts with them in the last few years. I don’t know who it would be.”
“He may be one of the crazies, a random killer. I’m going to make a suggestion which I want you to act on as soon as I hang up. Call the sheriff and ask him to send a man out. Insist on having him stay there. If he won’t, take a taxi downtown and check into a good hotel.”
“But you told me to stay here in this house.”
“That isn’t necessary any more. I’ve got your boy. I’ll bring him home tomorrow.”
“Could I possibly speak to him tonight? I just want to hear his voice.”
I opened the door and called the boy. He slid off Willie’s knee and came running, taking the receiver in both hands.
“Is that you, Mommy? … The boat got sunk, but I came in on a surfboard.… I’m not cold. Mrs. Rawlins gave me her little boy’s clothes, and a hamburger. Susie bought me another hamburger in San Francisco.… Susie? She’s all right, I guess. She wanted to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. But we talked her out of it.”